ELP2 exam – example questions for Section B: Vocabulary

NB: Both British and American spelling are acceptable on your exam.

1) Antonyms
Eg. Some universities treat student mental health as a trivial issue.
Answer: significant
Note: the answer is the same level of formality as the original and also fits with the grammar
of the sentence; “heavy” would NOT be an acceptable alternative as it is too informal a
vocabulary item.

2) Synonyms
Eg. Some universities treat student mental health as a trivial issue.
Answer: inconsequential
Note: the answer is the same level of formality as the original and also fits with the grammar
of the sentence [you can ignore the fact that the article should change from “a” to “an”];
“small” would NOT be an acceptable alternative as it is too basic a vocabulary item.

3) Word families
Eg.
Noun Verb Adjective
significance
Answer: signify
Note: the words in this question will come from the vocabulary that features on the course,
but the word class you are expected to produce may not eg. “peripheral” features in the talk
from week 1, but you may be asked to produce the adjective form (namely “peripheral”) since
the exam not only tests your familiarity with the course materials, but also more generally
tests your level of English proficiency

4) Prepositions
Eg. He had been ____ the impression that students were disinclined to describe themselves as
“woke”.
Answer: under
Note: you may associate prepositions more with grammar than vocabulary, but knowing a
word in fact entails knowing its grammatical properties, and for some words this includes
knowing which prepositions they are used with.

5) Lexical formality
Eg. weird
unwilling
outlandish
disinclined

Answer:
Less formal term More formal term
weird outlandish
unwilling disinclined
Note: you only get the mark if you correctly match up the word pairs AND correctly identify
the register level of each item.
6) Semantic orientation
Eg. outlandish, legitimate
Answer: legitimate [describing something as “legitimate” is considered a positive description,
describing something as “outlandish” is not]
Note: The exercise only includes items that are either clearly negative, or clearly positive.

7) Lexical precision: eg. Fill in a word which begins with “m”, means “a social system or
organization in which people achieve success or power because of their abilities, not because
of their wealth or status” and would fit into the following sentence: “Remember, this company
functions as a ___________: good work is rewarded with promotions”.
Answer: meritocracy
Note: Do not make the mistake of only choosing a word that would fit into the sentence: you
will only get the mark if the word also begins with the correct letter, fully matches the
definition provided and is the correct word class (eg. “meritocratic” would NOT be correct;
you need the noun form of the word for it to fit into the sentence)

8) Lexicosemantic exemplification
Eg. condone
a) She tends to condone the use of recyclable writing materials.
b) The summer camp organizers cannot condone any activities that involve illicit drugs.
Answer: (b) [this captures the meaning of the word “condone” in the sense of “accepting or
allowing behaviour that is considered wrong”; (a) cannot be correct because using recyclable
writing materials is not morally questionable or socially frowned upon [a word like “promote”
would make more sense than “condone” in this sentence])
Note: you will not be asked to actively provide a definition of any of vocabulary items in the
exam; you will always be given two example sentences to choose from.

9) Spelling
Eg. You will play an audio file such as the following
https://lex-audio.useremarkable.com/mp3/poignant__gb_1.mp3 through your headphones
Answer: poignant [you will type this in the space provided]
Note: you can listen to the word multiple times if you need to.

10) Pronunciation
Eg. You will be given a typed word like “money” and then through your headphones you will
listen to alternative pronunciations (eg. 1.
https://lex-audio.useremarkable.com/mp3/money__gb_1.mp3 and 2. https://lex-
audio.useremarkable.com/mp3/moany__gb_1.mp3 ) and you will then need to indicate which
of these is correct.
Answer: the first version
Note: I will not include example words where the two alternative pronunciations correspond
to the British and US pronunciations respectively, i.e. there will always only be one correct
answer.